ART CITIES: Amsterdam-Francesca Mollett

Francesca Mollett makes abstract paintings that react to space and context. Her works are reflections of light and surface formed through a fluid yet precise process. Compositions evolve by extracting observations from an image, which transforms in a practice of analysing the shifting passages of paint as tension between luminosity and solidity develops.

By Dimitris Lempesis
Photo: Grimm Gallery Archive

Often influenced by literature, Francesca Mollett reveals a deep relationship between the ethos of life and of time, elusive and unable to be articulated through representation alone. In this, abstraction – through color and texture – becomes an attentive way of considering these affinities. In many of her works, we see organic subjects rendered, so their defining details of difference dissolve into new yet familiar grounds. Through this careful balance of specificity Mollett’s practice invites us into spaces of desire, understanding, and candid encounter. On view in her solo exhibition “Halves” are a group of paintings engaged with the elusive nature of reflections, grappling with the visual phenomena that occurs at the meeting point of two surfaces and the ensuant disintegration of their physical boundaries into disembodied, abstract properties. The paintings often take as their starting point site-specific features of Amsterdam’s built and natural environment, for instance, the glossy dark paint adorning the doors of Amsterdam’s town houses, which extends the shimmering flow of water along its tree-lined canals. These reflective surfaces are sites of exchange, both with one another and also with the city’s inhabitants, acting as physical constants that mirror the fleeting daily routines of passers-by and the rise and fall of light throughout the day. In her latest body of work, these impressions are given painterly form across a series of canvases varying in scale, tackling the minutiae and the expanse of her subject. Looking beyond any metaphorical or narrative allusion associated with the places depicted, the artist is instead concerned with the visual spectacle that occurs at these intersections – the competing and contradictory qualities of opacity and transparency in the architectural surroundings, where materials take on the qualities of the things around them, such as the glittering movement of sunlight on the surface of water or wood, merged into cascading, weightless light and shape. This inherent duality of appearance and concealment is hinted at in the exhibition’s title, Halves, connoting the doubling or splitting quality of reflection. The title of the exhibition originates from a poem by Ella Duffy from her collection New Hunger (2020). A new poem from Duffy titled Surfacing has been written in response to this exhibition. The paintings on view in Amsterdam continue a preoccupation within Mollett’s practice of responding to a place as a way to organise ideas about painting, finding subjects that serve as visual metaphors for what painting can do. The question of what to extract from an image begins with Mollett making charcoal drawings. She follows by drawing with charcoal directly onto the canvas, adding fluid washes of acrylic paint that define a territory for an initial composition. Multiple layers of oil paint are applied in varying consistencies to create depth and texture, using brushes, a palette knife and cloth, to create passages that form a precise language and atmosphere. During this process, adherence to the source image is often left behind, as the painting itself presents new openings and possibilities to be explored. As such, the method becomes cyclical and collage-like, drawing upon both external and internal visual stimuli, painting in between the gaps of intention and intuition.

Photo: Francesca Mollett, Cosy smoke, 2023, Oil and acrylic on calico, 30.5 x 40.5 cm | 12 x 16 in, © Francesca Mollett, Courtesy the artist and Grimm Gallery

Info: Grimm Gallery, Keizersgracht 241, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, Duration: 2/6-22/7/2023, Days & Hours: Tue-Sat 11:00/–18:00, https://grimmgallery.com/